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RÉMIREMI BELLEAU
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Belleau made the humanistic pilgrimage to Italy early in life; he served there as companion and tutor to the son of the Marquis d'Elbeuf. Returning to France in 1557, Belleau published a collection of Petites inventions, brief poems on common topics, which won him little fame. It was as the first French translator of the Greek poet Anacreon that he gained renown and the affection of the PléiadePleiade poets, who were engaged in reviving the Pindaric and Anacreontic ode. By reason of these translations (1556) Anacreon for a while supplanted Petrarch as the model love poet; however, they inspired Pierre de Ronsard's famous reproof: "Belleau, thou art too dry a tippler to be a translator of Anacreon."
Long before HonoréHonore d'Urféd'Urfe (1567-1625), Belleau brought the pastoral to France--the bucolic form made famous by Theocritus, Vergil, Horace, and Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia. Belleau's Bergeries ("Shepherd Pieces") are the usual colloquies (although in prose) between shepherds, with verses and songs inserted. Among the nature poems are the two graceful pieces "May" and "April." They are frequently anthologized. The collection Amours et nouveaux eschanges des Pierres Précieuses,Precieuses, vertus et propriétésproprietes d'icelles (1576; "Love Poems and New Exchanges of Precious Stones, Their Powers and Properties") is in the tradition of poems dealing with gems and jewels.
Stepping up to the challenge to rival the ancients in the field of the drama, as he had with the pastoral, Belleau rejected the Hellenic pattern favored by Etienne Jodelle (1532-1573) and turned instead to situational comedy. Nevertheless, his La Reconnue, published after his death, has echoes of Plautus and Terence in its "recognition scenes."
Belleau was not only an adherent to the Pléiade'sPleiade's literary theories, but the themes of his poetry echo throughout the works of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Baïf.Baif.
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